Thanks Gordon, you spoke well on this fact of early days' religious life: > Alistair pointed out that the OPRs only covered Church of Scotland and > that there were records of other faiths. > True as far as it goes, Alistair, but the period in question was the > 17th century, and at that time it was C. of S. or nothing! I plead Guilty as charged, but being a 'windbag' I like to toss more grist into the mill. My reply was less about 17th century, and more about the region of interest. Yes, organised Christian religion was prominent in SCT from the year 1690 it seems (Fig 7 of Kathleen Cory's fine book) so I had wondered why the Scottish Record Office and other authorities referred to registers for 1500s! Examples, Aberdeen St Nicholas 1563, Anstruther Wester 1573. Maybe those had have been corruptly written up by "creative" Clerks.... > Catholics were to be found only in the Highlands and Islands with very > few surviving records until the 1800s. Similarly, early Episcopal > records were mainly taken over by the Church of Scotland in 1689, and > don't resume until the 18th century. The Congregationalists start in > 1794, and the Baptists at a similar period. There were Quakers, but > mainly in Aberdeenshire, in the 18th century. > The Reformation led to All or nearly all Roman Catholic records being > destroyed in the 16th century, and all that exists now is what survived > in the Papal Archives in Rome, some of which has been published by the > Scottish History Society, but this mainly refers to priests, and the > upper classes making supplications to Rome, and mostly 14th/15th century. Thanks again, that last para will sit nicely as I shall tip it into Cory's book opposite the church History chart. Book title: TRACING YOUR SCOTTISH ANCESTRY. A good read! Alistair